


By Any Other Name

by AmateurScribes



Series: Search for Ambrosia [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Huggins Is An Alien, Ice Powers, Magic, Memory Loss, Mystery, Yes you read that right, kinda in the case of Huggins, once again- only in Huggins case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 09:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/pseuds/AmateurScribes
Summary: She once asked Grif, what a 'rose' was, after hearing him remark, "That a rose by any other name, is just as sweet."She watched as he fumbled how to explain to her a flower that she would never see because there were none left.Everything in this world was dead, except for her and Grif.





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing long stories again, and I had this neat idea for an Apocalypse AU. I'm thinking, for this universe, I'll do one-shots that connect instead of one big story, which always feels daunting to me. Well, this is un-Beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. Hope you guys like it!

Fiddling with her book, she turned the page to look at the wall of text. Books were her favorite kind of toys. The way that the words blurred together made her happy, she could sense the emotions simply brimming from each letter, settling next to its partners to form a word to form a sentence to form a paragraph to form a  _ story. _ She could also sense that love was put into this, so much love from the author to the pages she flipped to and fro.

She couldn't read a word of it, or of anything really either. 

But she didn't let that get her down! She'd just have Grif read it to her later. 

She'd ask him to do it now, but, with a simple glance up she could see how her caretaker was staring off into the distance, a faraway look in his eyes, as his fingers lazily traced the window of the abandoned bus.

Shuffling her blanket tighter around her, letting the book fall shut on her lap, she looked up at him.

He'd stop spacing out soon, and then he'd notice her waiting for his attention.

But that could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days at most.

Huggins watched as his finger made small swirls against the window, frost following after him, disappearing a few seconds after, just fading away. But the repetitiveness of the action let her see the shapes clearly, and she fumbled with the pendant around her neck, recognizing the symbol. 

But then he stopped, his finger paused against the glass, and she could see how the frost was steadily forming, spreading out like a spider web, starting off faint but growing thicker. The temperature of the bus was starting to fall, and she pulled the blanket tighter against her shoulders.

"Grif," she spoke up. "You're making it colder."

He didn't seem to hear, as he continued to look out the window, not aware of how the already cracked glass was reacting to the frost he was causing. She heard it softly crack, knowing that it was threatening her, letting her hear how it was going to shatter because of the cold.

"Grif," she said louder this time. "You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to hurt  _ me." _

That got him to snap out of his daze, and his finger flinched away from the window as he looked towards her and her blanket. He himself wasn't aware of how much colder it had gotten in the bus, she knew from experience that he couldn't feel any sort of change in temperature.

Looking at the window, he noticed the rapidly fading frost and she watched as his eyes widened in surprise.

"Dammit," he cursed under his breath, hand going to his head. "It happened again kid, didn't it?"

"Yeah," she nodded, settling back in her seat. "Not as long as last time."

His hand dragged down the side of his face and maneuvered to the back of his head to tussle his hair.

"Sorry, Hugs," he huffed. "You gotta stop me when I start doing that, you know it's not ok."

"Yeah, but," she pulled the blanket tighter around her. "You always start fading when that happens. I can feel it."

"I'm still here aren't I?" he asked, taking a moment to clench his fists before getting up from his seat to move closer to her. 

He put his hand on her shoulder as he said, "Trust me, a little recharge will get me back to normal in no time, no need to worry about a little fading."

She counted the seconds.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He pulled his hand away from her shoulder and moved towards the doors of the bus. 

"I think it's time to go," he said. "We need to get you more, uh, more supplies right? Kids your age still need to eat right?"

He looked at her, and she narrowed her eyes at him to figure out if he was joking or not. But without seeing any mirth in his eyes, only a lingering blankness from his brief moment of fading, she answered, "Yes. Your memory is getting worse."

"Don't worry about that," he waved his hand. "As I said, I just need a little recharge."

She didn't believe him. She could feel that he was lying. 

He was worried about how it was getting harder for him to come back. And he worried about leaving her alone without an adult to look after her.

"Ok," she mumbled, hopping off of her seat. She shouldered her backpack, gripping her book tightly. 

Grif waited patiently for her, but his eyes narrowed at the book she held in her hand. 

"What's that?" he asked as he briefly flexed his hands, grabbing the book and reading the title.

One. Two. Three.

"Oh you are not supposed to be reading this," Grif tossed the book onto one of the bus seats. "And I don't care if you can't even read. The filth from this book is poison enough."

"Ok," she fiddled with her mittens. Looking down at her fur coat, she watched as it swished softly which each step she took, far too big for her size. 

It made her feel like a princess in it, which was the only reason why she didn't shape her form to fit it better.

"Were you thinking about your sister?" she asked. "Did something out the window make you think of her?"

Grif stopped on his way down the bus steps, looking back at her, he watched her form for a moment. She always had a feeling that he knew something about her that she never could. Maybe about where she came from, and why she could do the things she could.

But at the same time, she knew that he didn't know much about himself in return. That he didn't know why  _ he _ could do the things  _ he _ could do. Huggins was sure that Grif didn't know why there was a patch of ice surrounding his left eye, and why most everything he touched left frost in its wake either.

There was a lot the both of them didn't know.

"No," he answered. "At least, not that I can remember. Maybe a recharge tonight will help reboot this old memory of mine."

He left the bus and waited outside for her, as she bounded down the steps. Looking at the world around, she felt nothing for the wilted flowers, and she felt nothing for the lack of animals. She didn't even know what animals were until Grif showed her a picture book. Her nose wrinkled in the thought of the weird looking creatures. 

She would never want to look like one of them.

"There's a gas station not too far from here," Grif stated, walking towards the direction he pointed at. "If we get there before nightfall then we can set up camp there. But if it starts to get dark, we're going to hide out in one of these houses. Not like there's anyone home to get mad at us."

"Why do we hide at night," she asked, trotting behind him like a small duckling. Those were one of the only creatures that she didn't automatically hate after Grif had shown her from the book. 

"It's not safe at night," Grif explained. "That's when the bad people come out to roam the streets, looking for survivors."

"And me," she said.

"Yes," he sighed. "And looking for you. That's why I'd rather we get to the station now before those assholes can figure out that you're here."

"How come you never tell me the names of the people who are after me?" she asked. She had finally caught up to him, and she wanted to grab his hand, but she knew that he couldn't.

"Because I don't remember who they are," he answered. His eyes narrowed at the very thought. "All I know is that they're bad and that if they find you, they're going to kill you."

"Like how they want to kill you," Huggins whispered.

Grif stopped walking, eyes wide, looking down at her. 

"Where did you get that idea from," he asked.

"You stole me from them right?" she asked. "That night, I know you were there. And the voices, they were mean, but not your voice."

"I didn't," Grif sputtered. "You don't  _ steal _ people Hugs, and  _ no _ I didn't have any involvement with you ending up in the junkyard. I only found you there."

"But they'll want to kill you now that you're with me," she couldn't bear the thought of Grif dying because of her. He'd been so nice.

A tear slid down her cheek, and she was surprised at the wetness. Before she could freak out, Grif could see how her eyes had widened and her hands raised in shock, he intercepted her hands.

"Hey, hey," he said. "No freak outs. You're crying, it's fine, this is normal. Something made you sad, so just stop thinking about whatever it was, and it'll stop."

"Ok, ok," she said breathlessly. She thought about other things. She thought about all the books that she's picked up, and the words that she could never read and how she could feel the love.

She thought about how Grif had made sure that she was safe, thought about how he gifted her things she wanted because money and people weren't issues anymore. If he recharged long enough, he could hold her hand when she got scared. When the sky became dark it wasn't as scary so long as he kept watch as she slumbered to chase away any monsters.

The world may be dead and cold, and so may Grif too soon, but right now he was alive and warm, and that was all that mattered.

Her breathing evened out, and Grif had noticed.

"There we go," he muttered. "Ok, no more talking. Let's play the silent game. Questions just make everything hard, ok?"

She nodded her head and watched as he closed his hand before opening it up to her, an invitation to walk together.

Reaching out, she clasped his hand tightly. 

"Alright, see," he said. "This is ok, we'll just walk to the station and find you some supplies. And hey, maybe if we see a clothing store, we can see about getting you a new outfit. Sound good?"

"I want to be a witch," she announced.

"Then I'll see if we can find a Halloween store," Grif looked exasperated. "But the quiet game starts now, ok?"

She didn't say anything, she knew how the game worked after Grif had explained it to her in detail. 

So they walked, and she looked at all the houses that used to have people in it. It was fascinating to her, that people lived in those building permanently, unlike how she and Grif would move around and sleep in abandoned buses or in the woods. Little families living in boxes, it seemed so limiting. 

Huggins thought that maybe at one time Grif had lived in one of those boxes too, but not anymore. 

One time, she had asked what happened to everybody. Grif didn't really know, he just had his assumptions and ideas. 

They had made it to the gas station, and she had long since stopped counting when Grif let her hand go. She walked towards the door and pushed it open, huffing as it creaked. There were only a few things littered on the ground, but mostly everything was still in place.

She guessed the bad people didn't really care about the things left over- only the people.

"Go ahead and just take whatever you think you can carry," Grif said as he moved over to the magazine section. He didn't pick anything up, but his eyes browsed the covers.

Walking down the aisles, she found a bunch of cans that seemed like they would be good for consumption. Throwing them in her backpack, she lounged around, looking at things that she could never read or never need.  

"It's starting to get dark out," Grif mumbled, moving towards the window.

She almost wanted to warn him away from it, in case he started to zone out again. But she didn't need to as he turned back towards her.

"Here," he gestured. "You can set up your sleeping bag behind the register, it's not low enough on the ground, so no one is gonna see you."

"And you?" she asked.

"I'm gonna recharge," he gestured vaguely to the ground. "But I'm only gonna do it when you're completely asleep. No need for you to see it."

Her backpack slipped from her shoulder down to the ground, and opening it she brought out the bedroll to lay flat against the floor.

"What's your sister's name," she asked, settling down for the night. 

"Don't remember," Grif moved towards the doors, looking out at the fading daylight, hearing the faint rumbling of vehicles far, far away.

"Where are we going," she asked, her final question of the day. Questions were good in her opinion. They kept Grif grounded, even if he didn't know the answers. In the beginning, he knew the answers to most everything, now, not so much.

"I don't know why, but something is telling me to head towards some place called Blood Gulch," he admitted. Looking down at her, he shrugged. "Don't know why- I've never been there personally."

"That you remember," she muttered, feeling her eyes droop down.

"That I remember," he agreed.

Through lidded eyes, she watched as Grif settled against the glass doors, resting his back against it. Frost spread out on contact, spreading and spreading and getting harder and tougher. Soon it covered most of the door, and beneath her bedroll and blanket, she shivered slightly as the temperature dropped. 

So long as Grif stayed against that door, no one would be able to get in. And then when morning came, he could get up and the frost would recede and they could leave. 

Huggins eyed the uniform Grif wore, a vest of some sort on top of a black jumpsuit. Catching in the dim light, she looked at his name tag, and she knew it said 'D. Grif' because that's what he told her it said. 

She looked a lot like Grif, they had the same skin tone and hair color. And as she looked at her reflection, she could almost squint her eyes and pretend that she was this allusive sister of his- no name, no face, but a relation to her guardian that she could never match.

On his uniform was the same symbol that he had been tracing earlier that matched her pendant. 

Fingering it, she felt the indents. She knows it says 'Huggins' because that's what Grif told her it said.

Soon her eyes fell shut, and she was fast asleep. But she dreamt of nothing but a cold metal box and the rumbling of a vehicle.

Watching as she fell asleep, Grif sighed and let his form wither away, revealing a stark bullet hole in the middle of his head and rips and tears in his jumpsuit. He let his body fade and fade until it couldn't be seen anymore. He needed to recharge.

Huggins worried too much about his life.

You couldn't kill what was already dead.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot planned for this universe, but whether or not I actually get a chance to delve into it will be seen. In any case, I'm happy to share this snippet of this world I've set up, and I am totally up for questions of any kind. Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you want to get into contact with me, my Tumblr's are: @agent-murica (main) and @amateurscribes (writing).


End file.
